UK police say ex-Prince Andrew released under investigation

We're ending our live coverage of the arrest and release of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew. Thanks for following along with us.

Here's a summary of the main news regarding Andrew's arrest:

• Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office for confidential government documents he is alleged to have provided while a British trade envoy to convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
• The allegations originate from documents released by the US Department of Justice as part of the so-called Epstein Files
• Mountbatten-Windsor was held in police custody for about 11 hours and released "under investigation," police said.
• King Charles said the royals would fully cooperate with authorities and that the law must take its course.
• Mountbatten-Windsor has denied any wrongdoing over his ties to Epstein, but he has not responded to the latest allegations.

Royal biographer Christopher Wilson spoke to DW about the arrest of ex-Prince Andrew and surmised that authorities would have gathered "a huge body of evidence" beforehand.

"The police, and particularly politicians behind them, would not allow an intrusion of this kind and an arrest to take place unless they're pretty certain that they've got a watertight case against Andrew," Wilson said.

The historian said a likely scenario would be seeing Andrew "in a criminal court."

"I don't think he'll escape. I think he will stay and face the music," Wilson said.

"It will be a sensation. No member of the royal family has been arrested for 600 years, and the last person to do that was King Charles the First, who had his head chopped off once they had actually finished with him in court," Wilson explained.

"I can't see that happening to former Prince Andrew but he certainly faces a bleak future in this year coming," Wilson said.

US President Donald Trump has commented after the arrest of former Prince Andrew's arrest in connection with Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

"I think it's a shame. I think it's very sad. I think it's so bad for the royal family. It's very, very sad," Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

Trump also praised King Charles, saying he "would be coming to our country very soon."

The US president made the comments as he travelled to Georgia for an event.

The former UK prince, Andrew, has left a police station around 11 hours after being arrested earlier in the day.

Police said he had "been released under investigation."

"We can also confirm that our searches in Norfolk have now concluded," Thames Valley Police said, in reference to the royal Sandringham estate.

Not familiar with Elizabeth II's second son, the first baby born to a reigning British monarch in a century?

Unclear on the 66-year-old Gourdonston School alumni's naval background, or his highly publicized marriage to and split from Sarah Ferguson?

Rusty on what exactly gradually pushed him out of public life and relegated a once popular playboy prince to nicknames in the British press like "Randy Andy" or "The Grand Old Duke of Yuck"?

If so, read on, DW's Matt Pearson has you covered. 

It's been a busy day in the UK with the arrest of King Charles III's younger brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, amid an investigation into possible misconduct in public office. 

The former Duke of York, who turned 66 on Thursday, was taken into custody by police in unmarked cars at his Norfolk residence before noon.

King Charles III later said that "the law must take its course," and repeated a pledge from Buckingham Palace to cooperate with Thames Valley Police if requested. 

Andrew had long been plagued by scandal surrounding his association with deceased US financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but the latest release of files had renewed scrutiny of the man stripped of his royal titles late last year.

Police have not commented in detail on the ongoing investigation but it is thought to be connected to the emails published en masse by the US Deparment of Justice on January 30. Several of these were from or to an addressee labeled either "A" or "the Duke." 

Since that publication, an anti-monarchy group in the UK known as Republic said it had filed a formal complaint pertaining to emails which seemed to show Andrew had forwarded information on foreign trips he had made as a UK trade envoy in 2010. 

British politicians have not exactly rushed to comment, perhaps in part after police issued an appeal to consider contempt of court risks, but Prime Minister Keir Starmer had said shortly before the news broke that "nobody is above the law."

A few hours before the news of the police investigation broke on Thursday, Prime Minsiter Keir Starmer was asked about Mountbatten-Windsor on the BBC Breakfast television show. 

"One of the core principles in our system is that everybody is equal under the law, and nobody is above the law," Starmer, formerly a director of public prosecutions, said. "And it is important that that is applied across the board."

You can watch a clip here. 

An arrest of a senior royal family member has not taken place in the UK for well over a century, making Thursday's developments more or less unique in a modern British law enforcement context. 

Nevertheless, the arrest, detention or legal punishment of senior relatives of the kings and queens of England is by no means unprecedented if you look further back into history.

Indeed, these cases tended to involve much higher and more violent stakes than Thursday's. A very abridged selection follows: 

• In 1330, King Edward III successfully launched a coup at the age of 17 to seize power from his mother's husband, Roger Mortimer, who had been the de facto ruler since Edward was formally crowned three years earlier. He imprisoned Mortimer and his mother Isabella of France.
• During the 15th century civil war known as the Wars of the Roses, the last Plantaganet king, Richard III is thought to have put his nephews in the Tower of London, from which they never emerged, albeit without ever formally arresting them. 
• After the Tudors came to power and deposed Richard, their second king, Henry VIII, would famously imprison and ultimately execute two of his six wives — Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard.
• Henry's penchant for divorce led to more than a century of intermittent royal and civil conflict surrounding Britain's switch from Catholicism to a form of Protestantism:
• This included the imprisonment of the woman who would become Queen Elizabeth I under her sister Mary I; Elizabeth I jailing and then executing her cousin Mary Queen of Scots; Charles I being publicly beheaded, leading to the only period without an English king or queen in around a millennium; and England's last Catholic king, James II, being deposed in 1688.

The family of deceased Epstein and Andrew accuser Virginia Giuffre issued a statement to CBS News in the US in light of Thursday's developments.

"At last, today, our broken hearts have been lifted at the news that no one is above the law, not even royalty," Giuffre's siblings said in a statement. 

"He was never a prince. For survivors everywhere, Virginia did this for you," they wrote.

Giuffre died by suicide last April. Her book was published posthumously later that year, alleging three sexual enconters with Andrew. 

Andrew reached an out-of-court settlement with Giuffre in March 2022.

Based on the very limited preliminary information, Andrew's reported arrest on Thursday appears related to suspicion of "misconduct in public office" rather sexual misconduct allegations, which he has denied.

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Queen Elizabeth II's second son, Andrew, the spare rather than the heir to use the phrase popularized by the Netflix series "The Crown," was rather a popular royal in his younger life. 

Gregarious and outgoing, in contrast to his elder brother Charles who faced far greater public pressure and scrutiny, he served for 22 years with the Royal Navy, including combat operations as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands War in 1982. 

Fellow "spare" Prince Harry would follow a similar path in Afghanistan a generation later. 

Andrew's marriage to Sarah Ferguson, formerly the Duchess of York, became a subject of considerable press attention, as did their 1992 separation and 1996 divorce, not long after Charles' contentious divorce from Princess Diana.

But Andrew's lifestyle and associations with questionable characters including but not limited to Jeffrey Epstein, American financier and convicted sex offender, put him under increasing pressure as time went on. 

In 2011, his ties to Epstein, convicted on sex offenses three years earlier, led to his resignation from a role as a trade envoy for the UK. 

In 2019, amid even more intense public scrutiny, the prince gave a disastrous interview to the then-BBC journalist Emily Maitlis for the "Newsnight" program. Designed to explain away his connections to Epstein and allegations of sexual misconduct from the late Virginia Giuffre, it backfired.

The claims that prompted scrutiny and skepticism included Andrew saying that he could not possibly have been guilty of an alleged case of misconduct in 2001 because he was at a Pizza Express restaurant in Woking with his children at the time, and him saying that as a result of his military service in the Falklands, he was no longer able to sweat.

He announced he would step back from public engagements as a royal soon after. 

On Monday, February 9, Buckingham Palace made the unprecedented announcement that it was ready to cooperate in the event of a police inquiry into Mountbatten-Windsor's alleged links to Epstein. 

"While the specific claims in question are for Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor to address, if we are approached by Thames Valley Police, we stand ready to support them as you would expect," a statement from the palace said. 

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on February 1 that he also thought Andrew should testify in the US. This was a change in stance from earlier comments, where Starmer had only said it was a matter for the former prince.

Congress has been trying to secure testimony from Mountbatten-Windsor for some time. In November, six Democratic members of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a letter addressed to Andrew requesting that he appear. 

"Well-documented allegations against you, along with your long-standing friendship with Mr. Epstein, indicate that you may possess knowledge of his activities relevant to our investigation," they wrote. 

King Charles III has issued a statement in light of the reports of his younger brother's arrest. 

"I have learned with the deepest concern the news about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and suspicion of misconduct in public office," Charles said. 

"What now follows is the full, fair and proper process by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities." 

Charles said that authorities would "have our full and wholehearted support and cooperation" in their investigations, repeating a message first published earlier in the month by Buckingham Palace. 

"Let me state clealy: the law must take its course," he said. "As this process continues, it would not be right for me to comment further on this matter. Meanwhile, my family and I will continue in our duty and service to you all." 

Charles III's decision, with support of parliament, to strip his younger brother of his prince title and dukedom late last year means he is now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. 

Mountbatten is the original surname of his late father Prince Philip, and the House of Windsor is the UK's current royal house. 

Nevertheless, Andrew does remain the line of succession to the British throne, as does Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, who retains his titles but stepped down from his position as a senior royal in 2020. 

However, the chances of Andrew, once second in line after his elder brother, becoming king are now extremely small. He is eighth in line, after Harry's youngest child Lilibet.

The former prince, the late Queen Elizabeth II's second son, has faced various allegations tied to Jeffrey Epstein for several years now. 

He had always denied any wrongdoing in this context and said that he regrets their friendship, after several stays on Epstein's island. 

Last November, the British royal family said it had begun the "formal" process of stripping the 66-year-old, whose birthday falls on February 19, of his titles and residence.

Among other things, this came amid the launch of a posthumous memoir written by Virginia Giuffre, who described three alleged sexual encounters with the then-prince in her book. She took her own life last April. 

The more recent release of Epstein communications included many emails from a man who went by the email ID of either "A" or "The Duke." 

The anti-monarchy group Republic reported the former Duke of York to police regarding files they said suggested that he had forwarded reports about official visits to Vietnam, Singapore and other places in 2010. 

In the UK, misconduct in public office is what's known as a "common law offense," that is a crime that's been established by a combination of legal precedent and custom, not by a formal act of parliament. Police had previously said that this makes the current investigation particularly complex. 

Thames Valley Police issued a press statement soon after reports in the Daily Telegraph, on the BBC and elsewhere of police outside Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's residence in Norfolk. 

"As part of the investigation, we have today [February 19] arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk," police wrote. 

The man remained in custody, they said. 

"We will not be naming the arrested man, as per national guidance. Please also remember that this case is now active so care should be taken with any publication to avoid being in contempt of court."

Police also quoted Assistant Chief Constable Oliver Wright in the written statement. 

"Following a thorough assessment, we have now opened an investigation into this allegation of misconduct in public office," Wright said. "It is important that we protect the integrity and objectivity of our investigation as we work with our partners to investigate this alleged offense." 

Police said they appreciated the "considerable public interest" in the case and promised further information in due course.